Beyond the Lenses of Social Movements: Environmental Mobilization in Latin America.

LUCAS GABRIEL CHRISTEL; RICARDO A. GUTIERREZ

Oxford Handbook of Latin American Social Movements

Oxford University Press

Lugar: Oxford; Año: 2023; p. 439 - 454

Upon the third wave of democratization, environmental mobilization and participation increased all across Latin America, encompassing disparate groups,issues, claims, forms of action, and scales. This chapter reviews and discusses the vast literature on environmental mobilization in the region from the early 1980s on. To review this literature is challenging given not only the diversity of the phenomena studied but also the plurality of the disciplines and approaches underlining the studies. We will address this challenge by undertaking a wide examination of works that reflect as much as possible the plurality of views and voices on environmental mobilization. Our analysis will proceed in two steps.In the first part of the chapter, we will review the literature on environmental mobilization examining seven important dimensions to the understanding of mobilization dynamics:1. Types of groups involved and resources mobilized.2. Issues, demands, and problems in question.3. Frames and worldviews.4. Modes of action and participation.5. Scales of mobilization and linkages to extra-environmental mobilizations.6. Relations with the state.7. Influence of political and economic contexts.In the second part of the chapter, we will discuss the best conceptual tools to understand the variety of environmental mobilizations as portrayed by the literature. Can the concept of social movement grasp the singularities of environmentalism in Latin America? Is it possible to talk about steady environmental movements in Latin America? To answer these questions we will focus on both the territorial nature of Latin American environmental mobilizations and the different forms of state-society interaction in them involved, comparing the strengths and weaknesses of the concept of social movement vis-à-vis other concepts also used in the literature such as territorial mobilization, coalition, and network.